NEW DELHI - Days after former finance minister P. Chidambaram's criticised the ban on Salman Rushdie's controversial novel "The Satanic Verses", the Congress on Monday noted only the book's import had been banned. Congress spokesperson P.L. Punia said the book was not banned in India during the Rajiv Gandhi government. "The import was banned. Import of that book was banned, not the book itself."

He said Penguin, the publisher of the book, had decided not to print the book in India after consultations with writer Khushwant Singh. Chidambaram had said at a literary event last week that ban on Rushdie's book was wrong.